How to Do Instagram Marketing in 8 Easy Steps 2026
Are your Instagram posts supporting your business goals? Are you looking for a better way to promote your business using Instagram?
In this article, you will learn how to improve your marketing with eight measures that will help you achieve your business goals.
Instagram marketing strategy in 8 easy steps in 2025
1: Plan your Instagram posts to align with your marketing plan and goals
Instagram should be an integral part of your company’s marketing plan and complement your content, email, and other social media marketing activities. To create an effective Instagram marketing strategy, start by reviewing your company’s marketing calendar and come up with relevant Instagram content for each initiative.
Are you planning a seasonal event or product launch? Plan Instagram content for each step of the process, from teasers through announcements to collaborations. You can plan your Instagram calendar anywhere that works for your team, on a board, in a spreadsheet, or on a collaboration platform.
When adding content ideas to your marketing calendar, note the goal of each post. This way you will ensure that you have aligned your Instagram strategy with your marketing goals. Your goals might include, for example:
Increasing awareness of your business or your offer.
Getting people to engage with your content
Getting clicks to your website from your Instagram bio or stories
Selling products from your store or websites on Instagram
2: Adjust your Instagram posting schedule as you grow
Should you be posting every day, multiple times a day, or just a few times a week? The right posting frequency is critical to your Instagram strategy. Of course, you want to post enough content to see results without overwhelming your audience or receiving negative feedback.
According to research by Later, the right posting frequency is determined by the size of your account. Generally, for small accounts, posting multiple times a day is best, while for large accounts with 250,000 or more followers, posting approximately once a week is better.
It also depends on when you publish your content. Posting content when your audience is online means it’s more likely they will view it and engage with it.
To find out when your followers are online, open the Instagram Insights app and click on Total Followers. Scroll down to see which day of the week and time of day your followers are usually online. Then add these times to your regular posting schedule.
While you can certainly post at any given moment, you can save time by planning your Instagram content in advance. Both the Facebook Business Suite and Creator Studio allow you to schedule content so you can publish it at the perfect time.
3: Adjust the composition of your organic content to reflect changing demographics and preferences of your audience
Once you have an idea of the type of content you should be publishing, the next step is to determine how to place it effectively on Instagram. It is important to ensure that the content you publish resonates with your audience so you can achieve your goals.
To learn more about your audience, open the Instagram app, tap the Insights panel and select Total Followers. You can view the breakdown by gender, age range, city and country, which will give you a complete picture of your account’s demographics.
If you have already published some content on Instagram, you can also look at the Insights panel to see who saw your posts in their feed. By clicking on Accounts Reached, you will get a demographic breakdown and a better idea of who you have reached. Monitor this breakdown over time to ensure you are always creating content that resonates.
Even as you look for new content ideas, you can use your past posts to find out what worked for you before or what to avoid in the future. Go to the end and look at the content with the greatest reach. Then click on Accounts Engaged and scroll to the bottom to view the best content based on likes and replies.
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Write down the types of posts that had the best results. Did your audience prefer lifestyle or product photos? Did they respond better to feed posts or stories? What type of copy generated the most likes or comments?
Although Instagram started as a photo-based platform, this social media app offers much more than just feed posts. When you want to maximize your reach on Instagram and optimize your results, it is important to explore all the options Instagram offers. Include these types of content in your Instagram strategy:
Photos: From single images to carousels with up to 10 photos – you can create compelling feed posts.
Videos: For creating videos: Now that Instagram has discontinued IGTV, you can upload videos to your channel that last from a few seconds to 60 minutes.
Reels: In case it is a video, you can create a video clip: Reels: As an option for short videos on Instagram, they are ideal for sharing authentic content that is posted on a dedicated tab on your profile.
Live broadcasts: To communicate directly with your audience, you can go live from the Instagram app or schedule a live event up to 90 days in advance.
Stories: While they only last 24 hours, stories are ideal for sharing exclusive behind-the-scenes content or reposts from your followers.
Key information about stories: You can save stories to your profile by creating an album with highlights that is permanently pinned to the top of your Instagram channel.
Maintain a consistent style as your content composition changes
Since Instagram is a social media platform based on photos and videos, it is crucial for business accounts to establish a visual style. In addition to defining your brand, a consistent style makes it easier for followers to identify and engage with your company’s content.
For Instagram, you don’t need to come up with an entirely new look. Instead, your brand’s style on Instagram should reflect your visual identity on your website and in other marketing materials.
Your Instagram style might include, for example, a certain set of fonts, colors, perspectives, or aesthetics. For consistency, you can even use the same filter for your content.
As the example below shows, the @mirohq account on Instagram has a unique graphic style. All content, from photos to videos to reels, features bold colors and brand fonts. Posts are easily recognizable, so followers know they are interacting with the content of a digital whiteboard brand as soon as they see it.
4: Keep your Instagram copy focused on the end goal
Regardless of the type of content you post, the visual side is only part of the equation. To motivate your audience to act after viewing your content, you need effective captions, text overlays, and live scripts – collectively known as your Instagram copy.
How you write Instagram copy depends on your audience, your company’s style guide, and your goals. Think about how your followers sound, how your brand’s voice sounds, and what you want to achieve. In your Instagram copy, you can use calls to action (CTAs) that challenge your audience.
Leave a comment so you can get to know your followers and build a community.
Answer a question about their preferences that will help you with market research
Ask you a question so you can write a live video script or get content ideas
Swipe left to view all photos or videos in a carousel
Look at tagged products that you can view or purchase in your Instagram shop.
Click the link in your bio or story to visit your website or e-shop
For example, this @klaviyo post uses both a caption and a hand icon to prompt followers to swipe left so they could view highlights from this email marketing platform’s Black Friday report. The caption also prompts followers to click the link in the account bio to get to the full report.
The @shannonmckinstrie reel below also uses visual cues to encourage viewers to take action. Text overlay prompts viewers to read the caption, which contains five action tips for finding clients on Instagram. Additionally, the caption asks viewers which tip they plan to try first, a tactic that works great for increasing engagement.
5: Increase Instagram reach using hashtags
Hashtags are crucial for supporting discovery and increasing the reach of your content on Instagram. Instagram users can follow hashtags to see specific topics, and they can also find your content by searching for hashtags.
You can add up to 30 hashtags to feed posts and reel posts, and up to 10 to stories, so you have plenty of options. So where should you start?
Get in the habit of adding at least one brand hashtag to your post to strengthen your account. Then add all relevant campaign hashtags and a mix of industry, descriptive, location-based, or viral hashtags.
You can find hashtags to use by entering ideas into Instagram’s search bar and browsing suggestions. The app automatically compiles tables showing the total number of times a hashtag has been used, so you can quickly determine whether it’s popular or too obscure.
To get more ideas, enter a hashtag into the search bar and swipe left to view the best content. Then tap on some of the top posts and see which hashtags they use.
Alternatively, you can use third-party apps that identify trending hashtags and evaluate virality over time. This way, you can ensure that you select Instagram hashtags that are most likely to boost your reach.
6: Supplement Instagram’s organic content with influencer and user-generated content
You probably create most of your brand’s content on Instagram yourself. However, you don’t necessarily have to create all of it. Instead, you can obtain quality photos and videos from other creators, including customers and influencers. Both user-generated content (UGC) and influencer content can enrich any brand’s Instagram content strategy.
In fact, these types of content can be even more effective than images and videos created by your team. For many consumers, UGC plays a significant role in their purchasing decisions. This means that adding UGC to your content strategy can completely change your Instagram results.
If you want to post photos and videos created by customers on your Instagram channel, you need a simple workflow for collecting and attributing UGC. For example, you can track branded hashtags and mentions to find UGC, and then send a direct message (DM) to the original creators and get permission to share their content.
You can also share posts, stories, and reports created by fans directly in Instagram Stories and easily credit the original creator. For example, the story from @evernote below contains UGC from customer @annavatuone. The original story tags the note-taking app in response to an interactive question, and Evernote’s story reinforces the original creator’s content as a form of social proof.
If you want to establish official business relationships with influential customers, use the Instagram Paid Partnership tool instead. This tool allows your brand and the influencers you work with to publicize your relationship and allows approved partners to tag your account in branded content.
Want to include influencer content in your Instagram ads? This platform’s Branded Content tool can also ensure permission for paid campaigns.
7: Quick results with Instagram ads
In some cases, you can achieve your Instagram marketing goals using organic content alone. However, if you want to build your brand and increase revenue at an accelerated pace, Instagram advertising is a smart choice.
You can start by boosting your best-performing content directly from the Instagram app. Using the built-in Instagram Insights tool, find your best content and click the Boost Post option to increase its reach. Then choose from goals such as more profile visits, more website visits, or more DMs, create your target audience, and set your budget.
For more complex goals, such as generating leads or sales in an e-shop, use the Facebook Ads Manager tool and create a campaign. You can run ads on Instagram, Facebook, and the Audience Network, or customize creatives for high-performing placements like Reels and Stories.
For example, the ad below from @falconio uses creative optimized for Story placement. The ad maintains minimal copy and uses engaging graphics that encourage users to swipe and click through to the social media management platform’s website.
If you’re starting out with Instagram ads, consider beginning with a small budget – for example, $100. Run a test campaign to find out the average cost per thousand impressions (CPM), cost per click (CPC), and cost per result. Use these initial results as benchmarks, and then test new creatives, audiences, or placements to discover what you can achieve with a larger budget.
8: Make Shopping Easier for Consumers Using Instagram Shopping Tools
If your company operates an e-commerce store, you should also incorporate Instagram’s shopping tools into your content. To use them, connect your brand page on Facebook and upload a product catalog in the Facebook Commerce Manager app. Then open your account settings in the Instagram app and select Business. Click on the Set Up Shopping on Instagram option to complete the process.
Once you set up this feature, users will have access to your e-shop catalog from the View Shop button on your Instagram profile. You can also tag products on your photos and stories, allowing customers to start shopping right away.
Want to encourage your followers to shop at your business, but you don’t offer an e-shop? In addition to adding a clickable link to your bio, you can also link from Stories. Create a story and add a link sticker from the sticker library. Then use the text customization option and add a CTA to the sticker to increase clicks.
Conclusion
Whether you want to focus on organic or paid results, a well-thought-out Instagram content strategy is key to achieving your marketing goals. By following these steps, you can create a successful Instagram strategy for your business – from planning your calendar to choosing the right content to setting your advertising budget.
If you want results right away, you can get the Instagram followers and likes package right now.
Michal Záruba je specialista na digitální marketing a konzultant v oblasti sociálních médií a SEO. Více než 8 let pomáhá značkám růst online prostřednictvím strategického obsahu, optimalizace pro vyhledávače a efektivní komunikace na platformách jako LinkedIn, Instagram a YouTube.
Na svém blogu sdílí praktické tipy o tom, jak propojit SEO, sociální sítě a brand building do jedné funkční strategie. Zaměřuje se na to, jak firmy mohou využít moderní nástroje a algoritmy k tomu, aby jejich značka nezískala jen dosah, ale i důvěru.
Když zrovna netvoří obsah, přednáší o digitálním marketingu, školí týmy a sleduje nové trendy v AI a vyhledávání.